Traditional Catholic Teaching

Appendix to Supplement A of Lesson 6

Appendix: SOLE RULE OF FAITH?

Catholics have always believed that the Church is the immediate rule of faith, that she alone is the authentic interpreter of Scripture, and that in her is vested the supreme authority to teach. The Church existed before the first line of the New Testament was penned. The New Testament was written by persons who were already members of the Church, and was intended to be a permanent record of the Church’s teaching. Our Lord Himself wrote nothing; He commanded the Apostles to teach, not to write: “Going, therefore, teach all nations”; “preach the Gospel to every creature.” The early Christians were commanded to hear the Church, not to read the still nonexistent or at most incomplete New Testament Scriptures: “He who hears you, hears Me.”

Some non-Catholics contend that the New Testament books became canonical only in the second century. If this be true, if in the apostolic age the Church and not the Bible was the rule of faith, when and by whose authority was the Bible substituted for the Church?

Before the invention of printing Biblical manuscripts were rare and costly so that only the rich could procure them. Were the poor, then, during all these centuries without a rule of faith?

The Bible is not self-explanatory; a casual reading of any chapter of the of the Epistle to the Romans or of the Apocalypse is sufficient to convince us of this fact. St. Peter himself was aware of certain difficult passages in the Pauline Epistles: Our most dear brother Paul,” he says, “according to the wisdom given him, hath written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are certain things hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures to their own destruction.” (Quoted more fully below).

Meanwhile we have new heavens and a new earth to look forward to, the dwelling-place of holiness; that is what he has promised. Beloved, since these expectations are yours, do everything to make sure that he shall find you innocent, undefiled, at peace. If our Lord stays his hand, count it part of his mercy. Our beloved brother Paul, with the, wisdom God has granted him, has written you a letter, in which, as in all his letters, he talks of this. (Though indeed, there are passages in them difficult to understand, and these, like the rest of scripture, are twisted into a wrong sense by ignorant and restless minds to their own undoing.) For yourselves, beloved, be warned in time; do not be carried away by their rash errors, and lose the firm foothold you have won; grow up in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To him be glory, now and for all eternity. Amen.

That the Bible is not self-sufficient is evident from the endless commentaries and books on Sacred Scripture. The Bible is a large and ancient book, and no book can be perfectly clear for all men and for all times, It was originally written in languages which today are understood perfectly by only a few. It reflects the customs, habits of thought, and conditions of ancient civilization and was written in the first instance to meet the problems of those times. It contains supernatural truths which transcend the capacity of human reason. These are only a few reasons why the Bible stands in need of an authoritative explanation. If a nation’s Constitution, drafted by the best legal minds of the time, stands in need of interpretation, is this not also true of the Bible?

The Bible is not a textbook or a systematic exposition of Christian doctrine. It does not pretend to be a complete statement of Christian teaching. Three of the Gospels are largely three versions of one and the same story. The Epistles are not dogmatic treatises but letters prompted by the needs of individuals and particular communities.

The Bible nowhere states how many of its books are inspired or why. It nowhere teaches the abolition of the Sabbath or the abrogation of the precept prohibiting the eating of blood or things strangled..

It is the Holy Spirit’s pleasure and ours that no burden should be laid upon you beyond these, which cannot be avoided: you are to abstain from what is sacrificed to idols, from blood-meat and meat which has been strangled; and from fornication. If you keep away from such things, you will have done your part.

(Acts 15: 29. Knox)

The basic Protestant article that Scripture is the sole rule of faith is missing from its pages. On whose authority, then, do the Protestants accept these doctrines and facts?

It is one of the strange anomalies of Protestantism that while, in opposition to the Catholics, it originally started out with the principle that the Bible is the sole rule of faith, it is gradually coming to reject the Scriptures entirely. Under the dissolving influence of Biblical criticism the text is being emendated, its inspiration rejected, and whatever remains after these destructive processes have been applied is explained by what is called the Jewish and pagan background of the Gospel. Protestantism, the religion of spiritual experience, will have no dogmas, and in the measure in which the sacred writers are dogmatic* to that extent they are said to be “Jewish,” “Pharisaic,” or “pagan.” The Catholic Church has always maintained its traditional respect for Holy Writ. It accepts Biblical doctrines without any question as to their acceptability to the “modern” mind or spirit.

*Footnote:

We take this to mean that where sacred Scripture is dogmatic (i.e. appears to declare essential truth) modernist writers explain it away as merely a statement made in the context of Jewish, Pharisaic or pagan culture which therefore does not apply in our circumstances.

Professor Rudolph Bandas, 1935.

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